How to use MSCONFIG to speed up your computer

When your computer is brand new with a fresh copy of windows installed, your computer is super quick, no matter how fast or slow your processor is. But after installing all your programs (anti-virus, word, email clients, games) and adding your documents, music and video’s, you will see the speed of your computer decrease. The main causes of this are the unnecessary programs that are running and maybe possible viruses that you have on your computer.

If your a regular Internet surfer, I image that you have Anti-virus and anti-spyware programs installed or your computer. I am all for anti-virus, but I have noticed it can drastically decrease the speed and performance of your computer, especially at boot. Also programs such as Windows Live Messenger which loads at startup, will increases your computer boot time.

One way to increase your computer Boot time is to disable programs so they will not load on start up. Click the read more link to read on how to do this.

To disable programs to boot at start up, follow the instructions below:

Open up Run and type in “msconfig” (without the quotes). If you have Vista, just search for “msconfig” in the search start box.

On the Services Tab, untick services that you do not want to run. For increase stability of your computer, I would recommend that you leave the services ticked. You may tick the box of “Hide all Microsoft services” and untick programs that you don’t think are necessary to run.

Next, click on the Startup tab.

Now this is the most important part to disable programs to load at startup. Carefully go through the list, and untick the boxes that you do not wish to load when your computer boots up. Be very careful here, because some programs need to load so other programs still work. For a tip, have a look at the location and the manufacturer of the program to ensure it is not needed at boot. If you have a look at the above image, here are some programs that I do not want to load on startup.

Once you are done, Click Apply, then OK.

You will be prompt to restart your computer

On reboot, a dialogue box will be shown. Make sure you tick the check box so the dialogue box will not be shown again until you make your next change.